The Great River (Rail) Road
BAL-05, with the CP 6241 and 6303 in their sharp Golden Beaver scheme leading, weave through some curves along the appropriately named Great River Road north of Guttenberg, IA on the west edge of the Mississippi River Valley. An old MILW line pole for some reason hangs on here, one of the few anywhere along this line to my knowledge. The ballast extra with it’s two set of GREX conveyor cars has been trying to weave through traffic southbound on the Marquette sub all day. Some minor signal issues at the siding at Eckards had delayed the train ahead (K50) and now this BAL-05 was running on restricting signals behind the slower freight most of the way to Dubuque it seemed. But that made for a nice chase for me! This sharp SD60 duo didn't last super long before one of them was replaced with a GP20ECo, unfortunately.
The CTC for this stretch around Eckards to Dubuque is relatively new. The CP has slowly been implementing CTC on the Marquette Sub from Sabula, IA to Bluff (La Crescent, MN), and has finally made it to Marquette with just a few "islands" of track warrant control "dark" territory left south of there. Given the increase in traffic on this line that is a key link in the CPKC’s Canada to Mexico route it certainly does seem warranted. Ballast trains are a common sight on the Marquette as they shuttle rock to expansion and heavy maintenance projects all throughout eastern Iowa from the pit at Waterloo, WI.
The Great River (Rail) Road
BAL-05, with the CP 6241 and 6303 in their sharp Golden Beaver scheme leading, weave through some curves along the appropriately named Great River Road north of Guttenberg, IA on the west edge of the Mississippi River Valley. An old MILW line pole for some reason hangs on here, one of the few anywhere along this line to my knowledge. The ballast extra with it’s two set of GREX conveyor cars has been trying to weave through traffic southbound on the Marquette sub all day. Some minor signal issues at the siding at Eckards had delayed the train ahead (K50) and now this BAL-05 was running on restricting signals behind the slower freight most of the way to Dubuque it seemed. But that made for a nice chase for me! This sharp SD60 duo didn't last super long before one of them was replaced with a GP20ECo, unfortunately.
The CTC for this stretch around Eckards to Dubuque is relatively new. The CP has slowly been implementing CTC on the Marquette Sub from Sabula, IA to Bluff (La Crescent, MN), and has finally made it to Marquette with just a few "islands" of track warrant control "dark" territory left south of there. Given the increase in traffic on this line that is a key link in the CPKC’s Canada to Mexico route it certainly does seem warranted. Ballast trains are a common sight on the Marquette as they shuttle rock to expansion and heavy maintenance projects all throughout eastern Iowa from the pit at Waterloo, WI.